“I’m good, Mom. Really good.” This time, I wasn’t even lying. “How are you?”
“Oh, we’re fine.” I had a feeling that my mother, on the other hand, was lying. “Do you know this is the first time you’ve called me without me calling you first?”
“Really?” I frowned. “That can’t be right.”
“It is.” A soft sigh came through the line. “I miss you, Tay. Thank you for giving me a call, but what is this really about? I doubt you called me out of the blue just because you miss me, too.”
“I do miss you, Mom.” Hitting the button to put her on speakerphone, I set the device down and rubbed my temples. “I just, uh, I read something on the news and I was worried about you.”
“Worried about us?” She chuckled, but the sound was nervous. I could see her perfectly in my mind’s eye, leaning against the wall beside the phone, head bowed and hand clutching the top button of her shirt. “Why would you be worried about us? It’s our job to worry about you, sweetheart. Not the other way around.”
I bowed my own head and ran my hands through my hair. “That’s the thing, Mom. I am worried about you and I think I have damn good reason to be. I saw the predictions for soybean farms in your area this year. It’s serious.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath, but she didn’t deny it. She paused for a long minute instead. “It’s been a difficult year, and we’ve been through some hard times, but we’re a strong family, honey. We’ll make it through.”
Frustration made me grip my hair tighter. “You don’t have to worry about it, though, Mom. I can send you some money. Enough money to ease your minds and get you through the rest of the year without having to worry.”
My mother didn’t answer me immediately. In the silence that followed, I heard my father’s voice in the background. This wasn’t the first time I had offered to help them. In fact, it was such a regular occurrence that it seemed my father didn’t even need to be on the call to know what I was saying.
“Do not let that boy send us any money. If he wants to help, he should be on this farm with us. Since he isn’t, we don’t need his help.” He spat the words like they tasted bitter on his tongue.
I sighed. This was what it always came down to, the fact that I wasn’t there.
Growing up, my father had always told my brother and me that one day, the farm would be ours. The thing was that I never wanted it. I’d told him so more times than I could count.
While I’d still been living there, I’d done my part. I worked day in, day out, and I never complained. Whenever I went home, I still did what I could.
After I’d left home and came to Dallas, I sent them money every month. My paychecks weren’t great at the beginning, but I sent them more than I could really afford to.
I felt like shit for leaving Dad and Riley with all that work and I figured they could hire someone with the money. It didn’t take me long to realize they weren’t cashing the checks.
I called them about it. We argued, and Dad told me if I really cared at all, I’d come home. I’d help by sharing the workload, just like I always used to do.
That was the first time we’d had the argument, but it sure as hell wasn’t the last. To this day, Dad hadn’t accepted a cent of my money. I hired a team for them once, but Dad chased them off his property. Machinery I purchased got returned. Nothing I tried had worked, but I couldn’t give up.
My mother’s sweet voice cut into my thoughts before I could come up with yet another different angle. “Don’t send us money, sweetheart. Your money is yours. We couldn’t take it.”
I clenched my jaw and ground my teeth together. As usual, she didn’t blame her refusal on my father. She always protected him. Hell, she always protected us all.
What I needed to do was to get up there to have it out with my father face to face. After I’d read that first article in the news about the state of the soybean industry, I’d kept reading. Dozens of articles said the same thing. This could be the year that we saw farms that had been in families and part of communities for generations fold.
While nobody in my family had been honest with me about the true state of their financial affairs in a long time, I knew they were more indebted than they liked to think about. I couldn’t sit back and watch them lose the farm because my Dad was too proud to accept my help.
Unfortunately, I needed a reason to go visit them now. If I couldn’t come up with something legit, Dad would probably shoot me on sight. He’d know what I’d gone there for and he wouldn’t let me within five hundred feet of the farm without me staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Okay, Mom. Whatever you say.” I screwed my eyes shut and searched my head for an excuse that wouldn’t immediately make them suspicious. “I wanted to talk to you about that, but there was actually another reason I called.”
“Oh?” She sounded surprised. “Glad to hear it, sweetheart. What’s up?”
“I, uh—” I grasped at the first thing that popped into my head and said it without thinking it through. “I want to bring my girlfriend up there to see you.”
“Your what?” There was a banging noise, which I suspected came from her dropping the phone. Some muffled sounds came next, and she was back. “Oh, darling. You haven’t told me you have a girlfriend. Who is she? What’s she like? Do you have a picture you can send me?”
I chuckled, feeling like I was only going halfway to hell because of this. Mom sounded so happy and excited that it had to make up for the fact that I was lying to my mother, right?
“She’s great,” I said. “You’re going to love her.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to give me anything other than ‘she’s great’?” She sighed. “Well, I guess that’s fine for now. It’s more than we’ve ever gotten from you before. You’ve never brought a woman home before, so even vagueness is better than nothing.”
“I’m not being vague. I just don’t want to ruin the surprise.” Since it was going to be a surprise to me too, I couldn’t ruin it anyway.
“When will you be coming?” she asked.
Mentally running through my calendar, I shut my eyes. “We should be able to take some time to come up there within the next month or two.”
“So soon? That’s wonderful, honey. We can’t wait.”
“Neither can we.” After I’d hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I might have just bitten off more than I could chew.
It was all very well and fine to promise my mother a visit from myself and my girlfriend, but finding a girl to play along with the idea might prove to be a touch more difficult. I massaged my temples as I wondered how the fuck I was going to get out of this.
Perhaps I could tell them the week before I left that she had broken up with me. That seemed to be the most viable idea.
I would still go because I would have already bought my ticket and arranged for the time away, but no girl would join me. Although my mother would still pepper me with questions, I just wouldn’t have the answers to them.
I was still pondering my conundrum when a light knock sounded on my kitchen door. Looking up, I called out, “Come on in.”
Logically speaking, there was really only one person it could be. It might have been one of my other neighbors, but they hadn’t popped in since I’d moved here years ago. It was, therefore, more likely to be Elsie, and it turned out I was right.
Her dark hair was pulled up into its usual ponytail, and her face was devoid of makeup. She wore a loose-fitting, billowy pair of shorts and a white shirt. A slight flush tinged her cheeks as she met my eyes.
“Hey. I, uh, I was wondering if I could take you up on that offer to help if anything needed fixing.”
“Sure.” I pushed the empty cereal bowl away. “What do you need?”
“Some of the cabinets don’t close properly. I thought it was better to find out if you had time to help me fix them now than to leave it. Once my classes start up again, I won’t have too much time.”
“Yeah, of course.”
I stood up and motioned for her to precede me out of the kitchen. As we walked out, I wondered if I might just have found the answer to my problem.
Chapter 19
Elsie
“I think the problem is that they’re not level,” Taydom said as he opened and closed the bathroom cabinet a few times. He was on his haunches, his head tilted as he narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, that’s definitely the problem.”
“Can you fix it?” I asked, not sure how much a real-estate agent knew about being handy.
He chuckled and turned his head to look at me over his shoulder. “Yes, I can.”
“You sound like Bob the Builder,” I joked.
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.” He pushed to his feet. “Let me go grab a few things and I’ll be right back.”
I watched as he disappeared into the bright morning and turned right toward a shed at the edge of his property. Sunlight glinted off his pool and prisms reflected on his tanned skin.
He was shirtless, which didn’t do much to help with my resolution to not jump his bones again. Light blue drawstring pants hung low on his hips, accentuating not only his golden skin but also that behind I’d come to appreciate so much.
I still wasn’t sure if sleeping with him had been a good idea, though. It wasn’t something we needed a repeat performance of until we knew where we stood. I planned on talking to him about it at some point during the morning. I just wasn’t quite sure how to broach the topic.
A few minutes later, he came toward me again. Carrying a freaking toolbox.
With the morning light behind him, the caramel undertones of his hair became more obvious and his muscles bunched as he carried his tools to my house. Even more impressive, the toolbox actually looked used.
It certainly didn’t seem like he’d bought it just to have it but had never opened it before. The plastic was faded and scuffed, and once he opened it, it was obvious that the tools inside weren’t brand new either.
“So,” he said as he crouched down on the bathroom floor again and began rummaging around for something. “How was your first night? Sleep well?”
“Yes.” My mouth went dry as I watched him work. It was incredibly sexy to me that he wasn’t just a businessman. He was actually handy as well. “You?”
“Like a baby.” He grinned as he plucked a screwdriver out of the box and started fiddling with the door. “Although from what I’ve heard, apparently it’s more accurate to say that I slept like a baby’s father.”
I laughed, surprised again by his casual sense of humor. “I’ve heard that, too. Just so I know, you don’t have any firsthand experience in that, right?”
“Definitely not.” He grinned. “Not that I’m aware of anyway. You?”
“No.” I’d always wanted children, but that had been when my mother had still been around. I wasn’t so sure anymore. Raising kids without her around to advise me or guide me was just too overwhelming for me to even think about right now.
Taydom let out a relieved laugh. “Good to know.”
“Just for interest’s sake, do you want to have any children one day?”
“I think one person only has so much luck in one lifetime. I seem to have used up my quota in business. Somehow, I don’t think children are in my future.”
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it.” That had to have been the most neutral answer to the question I’d ever heard, but it was a good one. “What if you got to have a say? Would you say yes?”
He deflected the question by tinkering some more, then scooted back and tested the cabinet a few times. “There. That should do it.”
“Wow. That was fast.”
He moved the door back and forth and it was definitely working better now. Curious about his deflection but fully understanding that we weren’t really at that point in our relationship yet, I let it go.
“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked.
“Let’s just say I didn’t grow up rich or in the city. At my house, if you wanted something done or fixed, you did it yourself. Was it just this cabinet, or were there more?”
“A few more in the kitchen.”
He nodded and placed his tools back in the box before walking out.
I trailed along after him, wishing I knew what to do to help.
“Can you show me?” I asked. “You know, just so I don’t have to bother you with something like this next time.”
“It’s no bother.” He gave me a smile and dragged his free hand over his hair before setting the toolbox down again. “To be honest, I like doing stuff like this. It takes me back to a much simpler time in my life.”
“How so?” I didn’t want to pry, but I figured he could always just give me another non-answer if he didn’t want to talk about it.
Taydom hesitated for a minute, then shrugged his broad shoulders as he worked on the cabinet above the sink. “I grew up on a farm in Illinois. My family has been on that farm for generations. It’s hard work, but it’s a good life, you know?”
My teeth sank into my lower lip before I shook my head. “Not really, no. I’ve never even been on a farm.”
“You haven’t?” His eyes widened. “I can’t even imagine that. Farming is such a big part of who I am that I’m pretty sure a decent percentage of my bloodstream is made up of dirt and soybeans.”
I flipped the switch on my kettle and propped a hip against the counter as I waited for it to boil. “Why are you here then? In Dallas, I mean. Not in my kitchen. Your life here seems lightyears removed from that of a farmer.”
“It is,” he agreed quietly, working in silence for a minute after. “As much as it’s a part of me, it’s not what I wanted for my life. I was always the cliched one in my family when it came to that.”
“The small-town boy who couldn’t wait to escape the small town?” I asked.
He nodded. “Everything I did, I did to give myself the best chance at getting out of there. I kept my grades up and applied for a few business courses all over the country. I’ve always had an interest in property, but I wasn’t going to be picky. Eventually, I got accepted into one of the courses here in the city, got financial aid to be able to do it, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Wow.” My eyebrows rose. “I’d read that you were self-made, but I don’t think I fully grasped what that meant until right now.”
“You’ve read up on me, huh?” Luckily, he didn’t sound angry or put out by it. If anything, there was a definite hint of amusement in his tone. “I should have read up on you, too.”
I let out a decidedly unladylike snort as the kettle came to a boil. “You wouldn’t have found much about me to be honest. I don’t even really have social media. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, though. In the meantime, would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, please.” He replied without hesitation. “Okay, so first question for you. Why did you look me up?”
I frowned as I grabbed two clean mugs from the drying rack. I’d washed all my cutlery and crockery early this morning, even though they’d been packed away clean. I just didn’t like the idea of eating off something that had been boxed up without cleaning it again.
“I don’t think you would have found the answer to that on the Internet,” I said as I located my instant coffee in a different cabinet than the one I’d thought I’d packed it in. “How do you take it?”
“Black, no sugar.” He swapped the tool he’d been using out for another, swinging the door in front of him to check it. “It’s a good thing I can just ask you whatever I want to know, then.”
I rolled my eyes, but it didn’t make him any less right. “I didn’t look you up at first. Beth considers herself a bit of an armchair expert in the real-estate market, and as soon as I told her I’d met someone called Taydom at an open house, she told me a little bit about who you were. I only really looked you up when you asked me to move in here. Just to make sure there were no news articles about animals or children disappearing in your immediate vicinity.�
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“Well, thank God you didn’t search for plants. Those tend to shrivel up around me.”
“You’re a farmer who can’t keep plants alive?” My tone was incredulous as I finished fixing his coffee and put it on the counter beside him. “How does that work?”
“I can’t keep potted plants alive,” he corrected, nodding his head in a thank you as he picked up the mug. “Which is why I’ve never tried an animal or a child.”
“I guess that’s a good point.” I laughed as I stirred my own coffee. “I had a dog when I was growing up and I adopted a cat when I first moved out of the house. I did okay with those, but I’ve never tried a child.”
“We had animals on the farm when I grew up, but they weren’t solely my responsibility. That’s why I didn’t count them. I did do okay with them, but I can’t really claim that as my win.”
“Scratch the dog off my list, too, then. He was my Mom’s. I only helped out.”
“You still get the cat, though. Where’s it now? Living with your mother?”
The crack in my heart ached with emptiness. “No, she was old when I adopted her. The vet had to put her down about two years later. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and turned around, genuine concern in those gorgeous golden-brown irises. He frowned when he realized my eyes were wet. “Whoa. Fuck, Elsie. Why didn’t you tell me this was such a sensitive topic for you? We could have left it.”
“It’s not about the cat,” I said miserably. “It’s my mom. She passed away just about two months ago now. It was sudden. A heart attack. It just sneaks up on me sometimes.”
Taydom blinked a few times in surprise, then set his coffee down and strode over to me. He opened his arms and folded them around me as he pulled me to his chest, holding me tight. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. We didn’t have to talk about any of this.”
“It’s okay,” I mumbled against his warm skin, smelling that same divinely masculine scent as yesterday. “Thanks for the hug. I think I needed it.”
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